A modern woman dragged to hell

Alison Lohman in Drag Me To Hell

Drag Me To Hell (Raimi, 2009) opens this weekend as a counter-programming film to Disney/Pixar’s Up. For a horror film, especially considering the current crop of films in that genre, its PG-13 rating seemed a little suspect. How can a good horror film have anything less than a presumably envelop-pushing R-rating? What of violence and nudity that make up most of the genre? By the time our heroin, Christine Brown (Alison Lohman), engaged in her first battle with the woman who would be placing a curse upon her (Mrs. Ganush, played with ferocity and a sense of fun by Lorna Raver), it was clear that what the film may lack in nudity and gore, it made up for it in humour and over-the-top grossed out goobs.

To be sure, there was not much here in term of plot (as expected in the genre): Christine was a loan officer who, in an attempt to prove her worthiness to her boss, made a decision to shelf away compassion (or was it really guilt?) and deny an old gypsy woman of another chance to live out the rest of her life in comfort and dignity. As an act of vengeance against what she saw as a deliberate attempt to shame her, Mrs. Ganush, after an outrageously funny and suspenseful cat fight with Christine, placed a wretched curse upon her. Christine then met with a psychic, Rham Jas (Dileep Rao) who was not only knowledgeable of the curse but also knew of whom she should ask for help from – at a negotiated price of the cold cash variety. Much haunting ensued within the three days that Chrsitine had left to prevent having her soul dragged to hell by an invisible Lamia. Of course, there was also a twist ending (that we could see miles away, but it was deliciously satisfying, nevertheless), and its conclusion underlined a strong moral statement the film seemed to take a vested interest in.

The Raimi brothers knew how to imbue their picture with a sense of humour while remaining true to the traditions of the genre. This difficult balance – winking while running on adrenaline – played itself out not only with the way the picture was filmed (music, gags, cheesy lines and sound effects were in full force, intermittently interrupted by the still scenes and slow tracking shots) but also in our heroin, Christine. Women are one of horror’s favourite subjects – most of the genre could be argued to have been built on the strength of women’s thighs and other close-by regions.  If the central character happened to be of the female variety, she would be expected to have the audience’s sympathy at least by the end of the film. Our horrified heroin is often violated against in some manners, and she would often have the higher moral ground compared to our villain(ess). In Christine, the Raimi brothers threw in their best twist and most biting comment in the film yet.

Christine was very much a picture of a modern woman, a determined social climber who, on sheer will and smarts, had gone from a chubby pork queen of a farm girl to a candidate for an assistant manager at a bank, with a young and devoted professor of psychology as her boyfriend (his name, Clay, suggested a certain boring malleability though – Justin Long was perfectly cast for once). In her first fight with Mrs. Ganush, after locking down her car windows and watching the old woman flail seemingly helplessly against the glass, she yelped victoriously from inside the car: “I BEAT you!” She was eager for self-congratulations throughout the film – she wanted so badly to beat the odds that she would prematurely celebrate any inroads. There was a certain glee in her tenaciousness and willingness to go the necessary distance to survive. No doubt in her mind she was a worthwhile heroin who would overcome and rise above life obstacles. The events that unfolded would show her to not be completely in sync with what she would like to think of herself, however.

Vicky Cristina Barcelona: When Woody Allen Meets Scarlett Johansson

At first, I thought Vicky Christina Barcelona was a romance novel on screen, complete with erotic, juicy romancing in exotic places. Closer inspection would prove me incorrect, however. Romance novels tend to have two things in them that Vicky deviated from: a female narrator and an optimistic ending. The third person narrator allowed the film to be framed like a picture in a different world – a world pregnant with possibilities that may be a tiny bit far-fetched in this world. The cynicism of its conclusion complicated its warm, breezy, pink-laced feel of anything-goes romanticism. It would seem that despite our wantons, we are a creature of habit, unable to break out of the social ties we entangled ourselves in. At least, that was the picture depicted here by Woody Allen, whose love life was a true taboo-ridden tabloid heaven. It was no surprise to see him grappling with the struggle between doing what looked right and doing what felt right. Vicky was a continuation of this depiction, and no new ground was broken here that was not covered in Match Point, except for perhaps the idea of a third wheel being the stabling point for a volatile relationship and an all-too-brief famous kissing scene that made titillated boys of Scarlett Johansson and Penelope Cruz’s fans everywhere. I am not beyond jumping into a threesome involving these women. Did I mention that Javier Bardem was part of this scenario? Try saying no to that.

This mini review was actually meant to highlight what Cristina uttered in one moment of brutal honesty: she was not gifted in the same way Maria Elena was, though she could appreciate what art was. In some ways, one could see her being the mouth-piece for Woody himself, who often found himself toiled in some circles in the shadow of his favourite filmmaker, Ingmar Bergman. Bergman was a master of chamber cinema depicting relationship struggles involving the self’s deepest wantons, not unlike Woody’s chosen cinematic frame. I could not help but thought of Bergman as the Maria Elena to Woodys’ Cristina, and similarly, filmmakers being the Maria Elena to film critics’ Cristina. This was a passionate thank-you to muses everywhere. As we discovered in the film, Cristina did have an unexpected gift or two in her, waiting for the inspiration of spring to blossom. Sometimes, a touch of passion is all you need to kindle the fire within. Even if in the end our habits got the best of us, we would’ve known what it was like to be awaken. There’s no unringing the bell, and our life is that much richer for having known it, even if we’re no less lost than when we began.

The question remained though, what to make of the women in this film? Was he accurate in his depictions of women’s inner lives? Which of these women do you tend to identify yourself with? Is it fair to say they are all shades of every woman? Would you have said no to the proposition?

No Country for Old Men: A Summary In 3 Quotes

As No Country for Old Men, the Coen brothers’ latest film, rolled out in North America this week, there would surely be some head scratching by the time the film was over. I’d argue that everything you needed to know about the film was right there in the film, specifically in Ed Tom Bell’s (Tommy Lee Jones) speeches. Here, I’ll summarize the film with three quotes taken directly from the film. SPOILERS ALERT.

First, the beginning monologue that laid the foundation for the emotional and philosophical tone of the film:

I was sheriff of this county when I was
twenty-five. Hard to believe. Grandfather
was a lawman. Father too. Me and him was
sheriff at the same time, him in Plano
and me here. I think he was pretty proud
of that. I know I was.

Some of the old-time sheriffs never even
wore a gun. A lot of folks find that hard
to believe. Jim Scarborough never carried
one. That the younger Jim. Gaston Boykins
wouldn’t wear one. Up in Commanche County.

I always liked to hear about the old-
timers. Never missed a chance to do so.
Nigger Hoskins over in Batrop County knowed
everybody’s phone number off by heart. You
can’t help but compare yourself against the
old timers. Can’t help but wonder how they
would’ve operated these times. There was
this boy I sent to Huntsville here a while
back. My arrest and my testimony. He killed
a fourteen-year-old girl. Papers said it
was a crime of passion but he told me there
wasn’t any passion to it.

Told me that he’d been planning to kill
somebody for about as long as he could
remember. Said that if they turned him
out he’d do it again.

Said he knew he was going to hell. Be
there in about fifteen minutes. I don’t
know what to make of that. I surely don’t.

The crime you see now, it’s hard to even
take its measure. It’s not that I’m afraid
of it.

I always knew you had to be willing to
die to even do this job – not to be
glorious. But I don’t want to push my
chips forward and go out and meet some-
thing I don’t understand.

You can say it’s my job to fight it but
I don’t know what it is anymore.

…More than that, I don’t want to know. A
man would have to put his soul at hazard.

… He would have to say, okay, I’ll be
part of this world.

Second, an explanation for what seemed to be the resignation that followed an anti-climatic end to the chase, as Bell realized he could no longer put his chips forward to face things unknown:

I don’t know. I feel overmatched.

…I always thought when I got older
God would sort of come into my life
in some way. He didn’t. I don’t blame
him. If I was him I’d have the same
opinion about me that he does.

Finally, the happy, comforting conclusion to the film that some might have missed:

Okay. Two of ‘em. Both had my father.
It’s peculiar. I’m older now’n he
ever was by twenty years. So in a sen-
se he’s the younger man. Anyway, first
one I don’t remember so well but it
was about money and I think I lost it.
The second one, it was like we was
both back in older times and I was on
horseback goin through the mountains
of a night.

…Goin through this pass in the moun-
tains. It was cold and snowin, hard
ridin. Hard country. He rode past me
and kept on goin. Never said nothin
goin by. He just rode on past and he
had his blanket wrapped around him and
his head down…

…and when he rode past I seen he
was carryin fire in a horn the way
people used to do and I could see the
horn from the light inside of it.
About the color of the moon. And in
the dream I knew that he was goin on
ahead and that he was fixin to make a
fire somewhere out there in allthat
dark and all that cold, and I knew
that whenever I got there he would be
there. Out there up ahead.

This was not to say that there was nothing in between. The point was not to mull over the state of the world in so many words, but to feel the weight of the land, of the troubles people face, and of the random luck-of-the-draw. For that, you’d have to watch the film and not this 3-quote summary. Or read the book, whichever suits you well.

There’s a full analysis on my other blog, if you’d like to read a wordier essay.